I’m in an airplane with neither a working reading light or a working pair of headphones, so neither of the usual in-flight entertainment options are available to me. I do, however, have an AC plug, so my little laptop with its little dead battery can entertain me for a while. Although, without internet I quickly ran out of things to do. So here I am.

I’m flying home from a fantastic weekend in Chicago. The weather wasn’t quite as nice for the first couple days as the Weather Network had promised, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it threatened to be today, so it all worked out in the end. I was surprised, several times a day, at how windy that city really is. It was a schitzophrenic city weather-wise, with warm breezes one minute and chilly winds the next.

The really important stuff, however, happened indoors—the wedding of one of my best friends, Audrey. It was a great ceremony, great food, great company. We all went “aaawwww” during the bride’s vows and all laughed during the groom’s. The main of honour did the worm and I slow danced with the groom until his father split us up, so we had a threesome with Shelagh instead. Good times were had.

This makes the second summer in a row where one of my friends from undergrad have tied the knot. That makes three couples among my close friends in less than a year, with a fourth now engaged. Add to that what seems like a rash of pregnancies in my department and suddenly I want to get married and have babies too!

Well, okay, not so suddenly. I’ve always wanted these things. I’m very much a small town boy with small town values. I also have big city liberal values which would offend the sensibilities of many small town folk, but in the worst that’ll happen is they’ll make a movie about this small-town-cum-big-city-cum-small-town guy who shows up at the very conservative liberal arts college and starts stirring things up by questioning the natural order of things and supporting birth-control. No, wait—they made that movie and I was played by Julia Roberts. Damn. Now I need to come up with a plan B…